Sarah Ruth of Parker's Back
by AngelZash
Summary: This is a character sketch on a character in the short story by Flannery O'Connor.


This is another paper written for a class. I'm a Writing major, so this kinda paper should really be expected from me... This is a Character Study on the character Sarah Ruth from the short story called Parker's Back by Flanery O'Connor. I own nothing but this little thought on what Sarah Ruth was thinking as she watched the husband she had broken. Suing me would be pointless, as I have more debts than money. College will do that to ya...

  
  


Sarah Ruth stared at the sobbing wretch of a man she called husband with mixed feelings of remorse and hate. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him slide to the ground in misery, his sobs beginning to choke him.

'Where did I go wrong with you, Obadiah Elihue,' Sarah Ruth silently asked him. 'No. Where did you go wrong? I won't take the blame for your idolatry.'

Obadiah Elihue, or Parker, as everyone but his wife called him, turned against the tree as he came to a crouch on the ground. His new tattoo was now plainly visible on his back, fresh red blood running down the face.

Sarah Ruth still couldn't understand how Parker had ever seen Jesus in that face. Even if it did resemble him, wouldn't the fact that she had managed to cut it prove that that was not Him? How foolish her idolatrous husband was!

She simply didn't understand how he could be so idolatrous. She had thought that she had chased such ways from his mind and nature when she married him. This was his first tattoo since before they were married and she had understood that to mean that she had changed him for the better. Why he'd gone astray again, she would never know. Sarah Ruth was sure she had done everything right, even sharing her bed and body with him at night.

Sarah Ruth shook her head sadly. She had known he still wasn't a totally good man when she married him, but she had been working on it. She tried to think of what else she might have done.

Perhaps she should have told him off for all the jabs he had made on her lack of beauty. She had been too gentle with him, she was sure, but she had thought it better to gentle him, not break him. She did not think im stupid and had been sure that he would see reason if she simply told him the consequences of his actions and thoughts. 

She scowled at him, her blue eyes glittering in the dawning light, as she thought of how he'd ruined it all. He was handsome and smart, but was ruled by Satan and Satan's whims. She didn't know how she had lived this long with him. Why did she marry him? Why did she marry an idolater?

She remembered the first time she had seen him, leaning over his broken down truck. He was a handsome fellow, with muscles and nice skin, or at least the parts that weren't covered with pictures were nice. And he had to be better off than she was; he had a truck.

Still, Sarah Ruth had only been tempted and, even as she smacked him for his language, she had not given in to the temptation. It wasn't until the next day that she had started to give into the handsome devil.

Parker had come with food to offer. She and her family were poor and so hungry. She heard her stomach growl as he walked towards her with the basket, handing out fruit to her siblings. It was then that she had first decided that he might be worth the trouble of taming. Anyone who had so much food couldn't be all bad, he just needed to be taught the proper way of things. 

Parker had kept coming back with more food until, even if she had changed her mind, she felt obligated to marry him. She couldn't let a man as generous as he was and who had fed her family go to hell. She had resolved to save his immortal soul, even if it killed him. After that, nothing, not even his trying to do indecent things to her before marriage could change her mind.

Sarah Ruth had thought that his agreement to do things her way with the marriage meant that she was making headway. Not to mention he hadn't gotten a new tattoo as long as she had known him, a sign of progress she was sure came from her hard work. 

The marriage had been hard for her, she did not wish to become like her mother with dozens of children, though Parker seemed not to mind the possibility. Then again, her mother had told her soon after her marriage that that was something that just came natural to men. Like breathing. Sarah Ruth had told her mother that she would break him of that habit too, eventually. 

And then there were the lies about the woman he worked for. Telling her that such an old woman was a pretty young thing out to steal him away, Sarah Ruth was amazed at his audacity. And when he didn't return that night, she had decided that Parker had returned to his old ways and would never come home to his see to his responsibilities. 

Sarah Ruth paused in her thoughts. Why had he come home? Wouldn't it have been easier to just leave? It seemed to be something he was good at. 

She shook herself. No, it was his vanity that had led him back. He had wanted her to see his fake Christ on his back. And she had been glad to see him outside. Glad to have her husband home so that she could continue to teach him and be free to teach their baby the proper way to live. The idolater would probably leave now that she'd kicked him out of the house, though.

A feeling of panic came over her then. What would she do without him? She needed him to work, to bring home money for food and other necessities. And she still hadn't finished her job of saving him. She couldn't let him go before she had finished her job.

Sarah Ruth walked over to her husband, her cold eyes never wavering from the bare, clean skin on the un-tattooed shoulder. She couldn't bring herself to look at the mark of his idolatry.

She gripped her broom in determination as she neared him and finally stopped behind him.

Parker turned his red swollen eyes on his wife, looking very much like a child who had been chastised for some reason he couldn't understand. Sarah Ruth stood impartial, meeting his sad gaze with her own. She idly watched the tears continue to stream down his face.

"Well," she said harshly. "What do you have to say for yourself, Obadiah Elihue?"

"I did it for you," he said quietly, though somehow his words seemed to thunder into her heart.

"Don't you dare blame me for your idolatry," Sarah Ruth shrilled, incensed.

"I put the face of the man you loved on my back so that you would love me," Parker said as though he hadn't heard her. His eyes drilled into hers, seeming as though they were searching her soul for something. His words carried the tone of a man who'd had some sort of revelation that he couldn't understand himself and was seeking for help with.

"I did it for you, all for you," he said on another sob, obviously not finding in her any of the comfort or whatever else he had been searching for. Parker turned quickly back to the tree, hugging it as though it were his mother.

Sarah Ruth opened to mouth to say something more, but the eyes caught her. Blood ran down the face but the eyes remained untouched and powerful. The eyes of the Christ held her trapped in their depths as the features of the face transformed to truly look like a rejected Jesus, sad and abandoned. 

Terror struck through Sarah ruth's eyes as she remembered the tale of how Jesus had died, rejected and alone. Broken and bloody on a cross while everyone had turned from him, looking much as this Jesus looked. Looking much like this Jesus did now that she had broken him.

Sarah Ruth opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face, her hard, brittle heart breaking as the accusing eyes held her captive. 

The new day shone brightly over the tree and the young couple, but they couldn't see it through their tears. For all it mattered to them, it might as well have been the darkest of nights.


End file.
